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![]() Lucy ManganThe Guardian |
Am I to get no peace? This is not a rhetorical question. It is not the plangent cry of a mother on her knees, so close to the end and yet still not...
You think you’re safe. You think the one thing that age and decrepitude brings is a certain amount of protection from particular horrors. And then,...
You see – this is why we can’t have nice things. Human stupidity. And greed. Human stupidigreed. Specifically, this time, we cannot have nice...
I have saddled my horse, checked my spurs and mail, looked to my troops and pronounce myself ready. A battle has broken out in North Yorkshire and I...
There was a time when I would have greeted the news that a third of adults have stopped reading for pleasure with absolute astonishment. Utter...
The Treasury has denied that it has plans to phase out pennies and tuppences after it declined to order any copper coins from the Royal Mint this...
We lay our scene at my mother’s house a few days ago. It was a rare sunny forecast and by four o’clock she had done, dried and taken in the 17...
So, here’s a situation I would like to set before you and have you tell me whether I am rotten to the core or, in fact, an entirely reasonable...
My friend – we’ll call her Ana, as that’s her name – is going to university at the age of 42. She had her children in her 20s and now that...
It’s the general election on Thursday! Let’s talk about absolutely anything else! What do you fancy? We’ve got: 1. The fact that summer reading...
I have started walking. Not right now, obviously – I’m sitting down and typing in my stained cardigan and leggings like the respected professional...
“Cringe” is such a great word. Virtually onomatopoeic, so vividly does the very weakness of its sound conjure the quivering, quailing inward...
I have a big birthday coming up. I’m not going to tell you how big, because it’s appalling and I’m remaining in as much denial as I can for as...
One of my favourite internet quotes, which seems to be unattributed, is one that points out how weird reading is. “Staring at slices of marked tree...
I was six when I started my first diet. It was a modest effort, mainly because I had no control over what was given to me to eat for my breakfast,...
How Donald Trump must have dreaded this day. On Tuesday, Stormy Daniels stepped into the witness stand at the former president’s criminal trial...
CJ Sansom, the author of the Shardlake series of historical mysteries (and two standalone novels), has died and I am sad. I used to talk to myself...
So farewell then to one of the great pleasures of my youth and one to which I was very much planning to return in my old age – the Reader’s Digest...
It will undoubtedly be one of the pictures of the year. Household Cavalry horses bloodied and rampant in the streets of London, after being spooked...
Bryan Johnson, for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure, is a multimillionaire biohacker who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers...
Did you know that codes of conduct – actual written codes of conduct, with clauses, explanations, definitions and all the other quasi-legal...
I have made several train journeys in the past few weeks. So has my husband. So have many friends of mine. All to different places, on different...
In all honesty, until now I have been quite enjoying Kategate, the mad whirl of questions and conspiracies about the whereabouts of the Princess of...
As I am reminded every time I look in the mirror, tackle stairs or find myself turning the pages of a Lands’ End catalogue with increasing interest...
Morning people – early birds, the circadian-rhythmically frontloaded – have always annoyed me. We night owls work just as hard, just as...
God save the King! Not a sentiment I would normally feel the need to espouse, but we live in strange and difficult times and so I must insist that God...
This week my friend had to pay in a large cheque at the bank, a very generous gift from her child’s godmother. The teller – a woman of late...
Oh, thank God January’s over. It’s a shame it leads into February, obviously, which is by far the bleakest month and frankly doesn’t get enough...
My husband and I were just minding our own business the other evening when our 12-year-old son appeared in front of us with an announcement. “I,”...
Shh! An independent review of public libraries in England has just been published. Commissioned by culture minister Stephen Parkinson, and conducted...
I have just one child. This is not wholly but in very large part because I almost died giving birth to him. When people heard that I’d had the baby...
It is the end of the year, and I will be honest. It is hard to look back and point with any degree of certainty or satisfaction at any significant...
Are you having a weird Christmas? We are. It’s our first without Dad, who died in January. My sister and I have had nearly 50 Christmases with him,...
I started a new squirty bottle of mayonnaise yesterday (I know, I know, it’s almost too fascinating to bear already, but stay with me) and it was…...
Well, I hope you have all added torches, batteries, candles, camping stoves and clockwork radios to your Christmas lists, in accordance with the...